1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of searching a database of three-dimensional protein structures (hereinafter simply referred to as a "protein structure database"), and particularly to a method of searching a protein structure database through use of peripheral distributions of distance maps.
2. Description of the Related Art
The three-dimensional structure of a protein provides various kinds of information in terms of pharmacology and physical chemistry, as well as important information in terms of biology. With recent progress in structure determination techniques, the number of entries in a protein structure database has increased drastically. One technique for analyzing proteins is comparison analysis in which similar structures are compared to each other. Comparative analysis requires a technique for searching a structure database of huge size for structures resembling a three-dimensional structure obtained by a researcher.